Through the years, Korean sports have always been blessed with charismatic icons and winning stars. There's Park Tae-Hwan, the 2008 Olympics gold medalist for swimming, Jang Mi-Ran, also an Olympic gold medalist for weightlifting, Park Ji-Sung, Manchester United's midfielder and team captain of South Korea's football national team, and last but definitely not the least, Korea's most popular sport personality today, figure skater par excellence – Kim Yu-Na.

And there's Son Yeon-Jae. Many of you might not recognize her name yet but she's the newest kid on the block in Korean sports today that is being projected as the next biggest thing. Gifted with talent and beauty, 16 year old gymnast Son Yeon-Jae has been the poster child of South Korea's rhythmic gymnastics junior team for a few years now. She first gained attention when she placed 5th in the 2007 Slovenia Junior Gymnastics World Cup beating many of her more experienced Eastern European counterparts.

She also dominated her events (winning the rope, hoop, clubs, individual, and team contests) at the Korea Gymnastics Association's national junior rhythmic gymnastics competition held in Gimpo, South Korea last year. Last month, in her first senior level competition, Yeon-Jae participated at the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup held in Kalamata, Greece. She earned a respectable 12th place finish in the all-round individual section tallying a final score of 98.45 points. She is expected to perform well this year at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games in November.

In her recent interview, Yeon-Jae cites Kim Yu-Na as her idol and hopes to follow her footsteps winning prestigious events and competitions and giving Korean sports fame and recognition in the international arena. She is also eyeing a slot in the upcoming 2012 London Olympics where she hopes to win an Olympic gold and bring to Korea its first ever gold medal for individual rhythmic gymnastics.

- Stay on topic and do not spam.
- Post only in English, as this is an English language community.
- Do not request or mention illegal download/streaming services.
- Do not post sexist, racist, homophobic or other hateful and discriminatory content.
- Refrain from abusive language.
- No graphic content allowed.
- Respect the right of other users to share their opinion. Arguments are welcome, fights are not.

Comments which break the rules will be moderated or erased. Repeated rule breaking will result in warnings followed by blacklisting upon non-compliance.

Subscribe to HanCinema Pure to remove ads from the website (not for episode and movie videos) for US$2.99 per month (you can cancel anytime).
The first step is to be a member, please click here : Sign up, then a subscribe button will show up.